August 27th 2009
IT IS TIME FOR OBAMA's TEAM to CREATE THE POSITIVE VISION FOR HEALTHCARE & GET OBAMA's HEALTHCARE STORY OUT...INSTEAD OF PLAYING DEFENSE...
Obama did not get elected by responding to every smear but by getting out an overwhelming message of hope, and taking action to make a better world...
Maybe he can start with his Eulogy at Ted Kennedy's Funeral
We Need to Tell OUR OWN STORY - Instead of PLAYING DEFENSE.
Bill Moyers made a good start last week.
See: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08212009/profile.html
NEED some POSITIVE and some SCARY STORIES that both create sympathy and outrage at the inefficiency of the present system and the cruelty of Today’s system to appeal to people’s hearts not just their heads as Obama (and you) have been doing.
Like some of these 8 Topics for Ads and Speeches:
1.Seniors who love their Government supported Medicare Program and Efficient Government “Insurance” Payments
2. Poor people desperate for care – going to Emergency Rooms and costing everyone 3 to 5 X what Preventive Care would – Examples of Diabetes or Infections with associated $$$
3. People dying because they denied Care for Pre-Existing conditions (that were not related to treatment)
4. Insurance company Whistle blowers describing how the Insurance bureaucrats control Doctors decisions and Ration Care arbitrarily TODAY
5. Examples of Outrageous Pricing which show:
(a) that there is No Standard Insurance Pricing and portray how Small businesses pay 20% more than large companies
(b) Doctors who have to hire one administrator for every 2-3 nurses to handle paperwork of 30 different fees from different Insurers for the same procedure
(c) Why the Uninsured (Poor & Unemployed) pay 20 - 40% more than Insured for the same procedure –Must Pay entire Bill instead of Negotiated Rate
(d) Examples of Middle Class People who cannot afford deductibles for hospital stays
(e) Stories of Nice People going into Bankruptcy caused by normal illness or treatment
6. Shock people as to Why Status Quo is Unacceptable
(a) Healthcare taking over the Economy 17% GDP going to 25% - Scare People with size of the Deficit + Insurance Cost in 2020 and picture 1 in X people working for Insurance companies
(b) Inefficiency of spending 16% of healthcare dollars on Insurance company bureacrats vs. 5% in Germany (which has a Government paid Independent Insurance Model)
7. Portray the Insurance companies as Profiteering Monopolists
(a) Lack of Competition in many states means that a single company has 65 - 75% share in Many States (List them)
(b) Insurance Companies in the ‘90s paid out 95% of Premiums for care now they are paying out 80% and keeping the rest for administration and Profits
And finally
8. POSITIVE STORY ON MAKING A REAL INSURANCE MARKET FOR HEALTHCARE
I am a Conservative/Independent Voter that believes like Obama that we need to:
(a) Create Competition from a Non-Profit system (Public Insurance Option or Co-OP or Non-Profit Managed Care) to counter the Insurance Monopolists
(b) Get Doctors the information and incentives to use the “best” treatment for each patient based on
(i) Statistical evidence (Care/Outcome Comparison) and
(ii) Encourage Flat Rate Coverage that maximizes long term health NOT the more expensive tests and treatments based on (consciously or unconsciously) maximizing short term earnings from ‘Fee for Service’
(c) Publishing the Costs/Prices for the same procedure - Today No-one not even the Doctor knows what a patient will pay until AFTER the procedure. would also allow patients to “shop” for care – which they cannot do today. [French Hospitals – also Private Insurance based - post Rates for 100 most common procedures. See NPR Interview with author of ‘Healing of America’ See: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112172939]
So To counter the ignorant Republicans we need to show that There is No free Market today:
• No Competition
• Doctors controlled by Insurance Bureaucrats and motivated to overtreat
• Patients cannot even try to shop for efficient care - if no-one knows the prices
We need Obama’s plan to make a real insurance market for care that will:
• Drive down prices and
• Minimize administrative cost
……but with
• Care and
• Compassion to care for Sick and Dying Normal People!@!
Let’s STOP PLAYING DEFENSE and GET THE EMOTIONAL STORY OUT – not just the facts.
2. If you're an employed person sharing your health insurance premium with your employer, you live in Germany. That's the Bismarck model that was invented in Germany and used in many countries.
3. If you're a senior and you buy Medicare insurance from the government and go to private doctors, you live in Canada. That's the Canadian model. As a matter of fact, the Canadian health care system is called Medicare, and when Lyndon Johnson provided it for our seniors in 1965 he borrowed both the model and the name from Canada.
4. And if you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who can't get health insurance, well, you live in Malawi or Madagascar or Mali or something, because if you can pay for health insurance you get it, or maybe you can line up at the free hospital sometime.
"We've got them all and that's really the most important difference. All the other countries have decided that it's cheaper and fairer to provide one model so that everybody has the same access to the same care at the same price...."
Arthur Laffer wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal on “The Age of Prosperity is Over” that blames Taxes and Government. See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122506830024970697.html so I wrote some stuff on why much of the recent Financial Collapse is a FAILURE OF THE MARKET TO OPERATE FREELY AND EFFICIENTLY and what a really Free Market requires. WSJ approved it and it is on their forum site at: http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php?p=159104#159104
For Non-WSJ Subscribers - here is my response to Laffer:
October 27th. 2008
Dear Mr Laffer
While several of the points you make are narrowly correct, you attack the people who are trying to bring sanity back rather than looking at the underlying original causes.
Much of this Financial Crisis - that may lead to "The End of Prosperity" - is failure of the Market to Operate "Freely" - NOT the Result of Excessive Government Taxation or Deficit Spending.
Without Transparency and Rationality Markets are NOT Free. How can you admit that we have "Financial panic..." and still think that the Markets are "free". [And I agree that the Bush Administration also panicked.]
But you skip over the Key Requirements for Free Markets:
A. "Free Markets" require Good Information;
B. Investors must behave Rationally NOT emotionally or in panic - as many are currently doing;
and
C. We must Control of Deceptive Sales Practices for Buyers - both Investors in Equitized Mortgage Portfolios/Credit Default Swaps and Mortgage Recipients themselves.
Surely SOME Laws aka. Regulations and Government actions are appropriate to guarantee good information, enhance rational behavior and eliminate deceptive sales practices.
A good advocate of Free Markets should want them to Work Effectively.
Can you not admit - even now - an appropriate Role of Government is to MAKE SURE THAT MARKETS WORK FREELY, FAIRLY AND COMPETITIVELY; and that without Transparency and Oversight, Human Beings - being only human - will attempt to subvert markets and exploit information gaps for their individual benefit.
A. "INFORMATION" failures:
A1. No one could correctly price the Equitized Sub-Prime Mortgage Portfolios because there was no way to know the quality of the underlying assets - So NO MARKET COULD PRICE THEM CORRECTLY.
A2. As a follow-on - NO ONE COULD CORRECTLY PRICE THE REAL RISK in Credit Default Swaps. (Fortunately many Swaps were balanced - so the magnitude of default Swap losses may be only one tenth of what some have estimated)
A3. There is often No way to know who the Counterparty is on many deals - so there is now NO WAY TO RE-NEGOTIATE DEBTS or MORTGAGES PRIVATELY.
B. "Irrational Investor" failures:
B1. Banks appear to have panicked too and are now afraid to lend to anyone for fear a few loans may be bad - Risks they uusually to know how to handle. Government guarantees for Inter-bank transactions make sense to stabilize this.
B2. And Stock Markets and Individual Investors around the world are over-reacting and dumping all stocks - even many that have good balance sheets and will continue to have solid earnings in a Recession. We need Leaders on Wall Street (like Warren Buffet) to bring us back to value investing.
C. "Deceptive Sales Practices" failures:
C1. 65% of Home Owners who got sub-prime ARMs were eligible for Prime Mortgages - but the Mortgage sales people were massively motivated to sell the higher priced Mortgages to them that were far more expensive in the long run. They did not discuss Prime options with these borrowers - No real Truth in Lending.
C2. Rating Agencies Knew that many of the equitized Portfolios were not AAA, but misrated them due to Conflicts of Interest.
While I agree that Price Controls hurt Markets and Excessive Deficits will haunt us for Generations - much of the Government outlay to Banks, Insurance Companies and even Mortgage re-Financing, will enhance market operations and will be returned over the next decade. It is NOT Pure Deficit Spending.
[BTW - While the Government "management of the banks" would be a bad idea - this NOT happening. Neither Secretary Paulson nor Barney Frank have Voting Control over Bank Policy.]
And finally ...No one is proposing the magnitude of Herbert Hoover Tax Increases like the Revenue Act of 1932.
No one is proposing to double Estate taxes or to tax every checking transaction.
It is time to start to focus our efforts on how to Make Free Markets truly Free, Transparent and Efficient.
- Sue Rudd
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For Laffer's (Generally) Discredited Thesis and Economic Debate - See Laffer Curve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
Comments ?
As the "reverse auctons" for the "Toxic" Mortgages begin, it occurs to me that the US Government will become the proud owner of a large group of Mortgage assets that will over time be worth at least 50% of their face value and hopefully more than what the government pays at the auction.
This group of "illiquid" assets will create a long term stream of payments from the 70%+ or so of Mortgage holders that do NOT default.
This could be a perfect set of assets to start to fund the Social Security Trust Fund for the Baby Boomers' Retirement.
Could this unexpected Government Asset Grab (including any Equity in Banks) begin to close the Social Security Financing "Gap"?
Hopefully the current administration will hold the assets long enough for the Obama Administration this decision.
These Mortgage Assets will be worth more as we see which ones are solid over a Long Time horizon...
Let's use them for the other Long Term problem - Social Security !
PRINCETON, NJ -- The Sept. 14-16 Gallup Poll Daily tracking update shows Barack Obama regaining a slight, although not statistically significant, edge over John McCain, 47% to 45%, among registered voters, marking the first time since the week of the Republican National Convention that McCain has not held at least a one percentage point margin over Obama.
From a broad perspective, the race remains a statistical tie. But there has been a general drift towards Obama since McCain moved to a five-point lead over Obama through the weekend after the GOP convention.
Today's report includes two days of interviewing conducted after reports of the collapse of Wall Street financial institutions and changes in the stock market began to dominate the news on Monday. Gallup Poll Daily tracking data show that in each of these individual days (Monday and Tuesday) consumer ratings of the U.S. economy have become more negative. Similarly, in each of these individual days' interviewing, Obama has led McCain in election tracking. There is thus a correlation between the bad financial news and Obama's gains, although the data do not allow us to conclude definitively that there is a causal connection between the two. Throughout the campaign, Obama has generally held an edge over McCain when voters are asked who could best handle the U.S. economy, although McCain gained on the economic dimension in polling conducted immediately after the GOP convention. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
It is also worth noting that Gallup tracking shows the percentage of Americans who report being happy without a lot of stress has now fallen to the lowest level measured this year. -- Frank Newport
(Click here to see how the race currently breaks down by demographic subgroup.)
Survey Methods
For the Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey, Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008.
The general-election results are based on combined data from Sept. 14-16, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,787 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
To provide feedback or suggestions about how to improve Gallup.com, please e-mail feedback@gallup.com.
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A "Must See" Program on what it will take to Stabilize Financial Crisis and create a Truly FREE & FAIR MARKET.
http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/09/15/1/a-discussion-about-the-crisis-on-wall-street
An outstanding program - Every person who wants a truly Free Market (with good Information and Fair Dealing and Reasonable Risk Taking) should listen to this !.
Covered everything from Larry Summers on the basics to multiple commentators who were "thinking outside the box" and at the very end of the show described that Lehmann's final demise was because Wall Street NO LONGER BELIEVED ANY STATEMENTS ABOUT THEIR ASSET VALUE.
Nouriel Roubini painted a bleak but possibly accurate picture of failure to deal with reality and the failed business model of Investment Banks who (to paraphrase)"Borrow Short and Lend Long in Illiquid Investments at a Ratio of 30:1".
Josh Rosner crystalized a very clear view that (to paraphrase)"We will NOT get through this ...until we have genuine TRANSPARENCY for the Free Market to correctly value Assets at the Financial Institutions - and we have had imperfect information for buyers in these convoluted equity instruments.".
“TRANSPARENCY MUST REPLACE OPACITY.”
Charles Gasparino's commented that (to paraphrase) "we do cannot know where the end is - if WE HAVE NOT YET BEGUN the Asset Write Down".
And Andrew Ross Sorkin clarified the whole conversation in a (slightly) more optimistic way.
Great - if scary - Program.
Sue
Crossover Voters may well decide the Presidential Election in several Swing States.
It is time to crystalize Obama's Message to these voters.
It is 58 days to the Election and we need to Highlight Obama’s position on Two Winning Issues for Crossover Voters who believe that:
1. War should NOT be the FIRST Tool of Foreign Policy
2. Government should NOT legislate matters of personal faith and FORBID personal choice - including beliefs on when life begins. Over 30% of Republican women believe that they should not be denied the Right of Choice. Even if you are personally Pro-Life it should not be legislated – Biden had an excellent discussion of his personal Catholic beliefs vs. Role of Govt. Legislation – See: C-SPAN 2006 Interview with Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) Note: Minutes 26 or so to 27:50 Thursday, August 3, 2006
http://www.c-span.org/search.aspx?For=2006%20Interview%20with%20Sen.%20Joe%20Biden%20(D-DE)
The new Republicans for Obama “Why OBAMA” page actually has a nice but very general summary of key issues for Republicans - See: http://www.republicansforobama.org/?q=consider
BUT site Avoids the Two Hot Issues (above) that will cause Independents and Republicans to switch to Obama.
Your Comments ?
Please POST IDEAS & SUGGESTIONS to get Independents and Republicans to crossover for Obama!
http://www.republicansforobama.org/?q=consider Issues A Unified America Can and Must Address(Highlights): National Debt ... We cannot saddle future taxpayers with having to service the debt we create with our irresponsible fiscal policies. Cutting the deficit will additionally decrease interest rates and increase private investment. Trade Deficit ... recent American administrations have been unable or unwilling to force China to revalue its currency and take other measures to strengthen our exports overseas. Energy Independence ... without tapping into Alaska’s oil reserves or drilling offshore, we can dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil—we have not even begun to realize the possibilities of Iowa corn, South Dakota wind or Montana coal. Even a growing number of environmentalists support increased nuclear power production. Global Warming Even those who still believe that global warming is a natural occurrence should agree that rising sea levels and other geological changes will be expensive to adapt to and probably impossible to undo. If we are able to reverse this dangerous trend, we must. No other nation has the economic and political power to take the lead on this issue. Social Security ... Social Security system needs to be reformed to bring it into the 21st century and beyond with the new financial knowledge and tools available to Americans. We need a reliable, sustainable retirement plan that combines mandatory retirement savings with flexibility, choice, and security Healthcare Reform .... Rising healthcare costs are crippling business and putting millions of Americans, especially children and the elderly, at great risk. .... We must reform healthcare to make it accessible and affordable for all Americans, while maintaining the competitiveness and innovation that has made our system the envy of the world. Included in a general reform of our healthcare system must come an overhaul of our Medicare/Medicaid system.... we must re-engineer a system that is fiscally self-sustaining and does not pass today’s health problems onto future generations. Tax Reform Our tax code is inefficient and full of loopholes. A simplified code could aid economic growth and provide for a fairer tax system, especially for small businesses and the working poor.
Immigration Reform ...Thousands of employers hire .. illegal workers, often times to the detriment of American workers, and often times exploit the illegal immigrants themselves. Despite extensive talk by both Republicans and Democrats to solve this and many other problems we face, nothing has been done.
It is time to Go Capture these Crossover Voters.
Please Post your ideas of how to get
(i) Independents for Obama and (ii) Republicans for Obama and (iii) Hi-Tech and Small Business People much better organized to support and vote for Obama.
To donate to start spreading these ideas immediately go to: http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/suerudd
